


Eyes in the Mountains

by ShiDreamin



Series: You and I (Retainer Swap) [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShiDreamin/pseuds/ShiDreamin
Summary: Red in their battlegrounds, the blood of a future smeared across the floor.Red on her hands, on her axe, on her past and her future.“Edelgard?”She’s been stained beyond redemption.
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Series: You and I (Retainer Swap) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920106
Kudos: 46





	Eyes in the Mountains

Red.

It is historically the Empire’s color. Red in their soldiers who conquered this nation, red in their mothers who cradle the birth of a child, red in their fathers who bury its disfigured remains in the dirt. Red in their flags, in their uniforms, in the symbols they bear with honor: this beautiful, deep red.

Red in their battlegrounds, the blood of a future smeared across the floor.

Red on her hands, on her axe, on her past and her future.

“Edelgard?”

She’s been stained beyond redemption.

“Hilda.” Edelgard stands, making a show of dusting off her dress. It’s far too late for either of them to be up, moonlight glaring into her room. She would have thought Hilda had gone to bed quite a long while ago, for reasons of “beauty sleep” and “self-care.”

There is no room for such nonsense in war. To many, it’s a wonder Hilda’s survived this long with such frivolous priorities. Edelgard had once thought the same, spending a year trailing behind Hilda’s back, asking for time she was never given. Her pink housemate spent twice as much time on her looks than any of her studies. It had been infuriating to be disrespected so obviously.

Then Hilda had saved her life, gripping Edelgard with strength she had never felt before, and Edelgard had never known a time she had been so happy to be wrong.

“It’s late,” she says, nodding to the nearly melted out pool of wax on her desk, the tiny remain of candlewick barely peeking out. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Hilda shoots back. She yawns, loud and obvious and irritating, batting her lashes. “I can’t sleep with the lights on! Can’t you do this whole,” a hand waved at the pile of books on her table, “thing tomorrow?”

“This _thing_ you speak of tracks our army,” Edelgard hisses. The books seem to be an endless connecting array, numbers in one text related to another, and if she gets even one wrong the end result means that nothing will add up. There are books about their funding, and ones about research, and a few that she doesn’t particularly enjoy opening. Logs about the number of soldiers enlisting, and the number of soldiers left.

Those don’t ever add up, and she doesn’t bother correcting them.

“Well it’s not like it matters! We can’t even read half of this stuff,” Hilda huffs. She deflates immediately after, walking over to smooth her palm on the book covers, mumbling softly under her breath. “Linhardt kept this private for a reason.”

It’s hard not to hiss at that. Edelgard had gone into the battle knowing that there would be lives lost, that they would be lost sometimes at her hand, under her axe, under her command. She had known that, had prepared her whole life for it, switching hands and weapons under different guises until wearing red had become second nature.

She hadn’t known how much it would hurt to see her friends smile as they raised their hands and volunteered to die.

“What we can read is useful,” she says instead, marking down their expected date for the next food shipment. There aren’t a lot of options left for them, with Claude finally making moves to have bandits mysteriously delay food coming from Glouchester county, and Faerghus unable to grow many crops to begin with. Brigid had been helpful until Petra had died, and though Dorothea sung and danced and cried for her body it was never recovered.

Brigid hadn’t been very helpful after that. She had respected their wishes this long, her own heart heavy, but her army must eat.

Her hands are already stained.

“Either way, it’s late! Let’s sleep together tonight, just like old times, okay?” Hilda croons, bending over the table. Edelgard rolls her eyes, biting her lip. What “old times”? She had spent the entirety of her schooling in her own room, connecting with vile rats who disgusted her in the shadows of the night.

It wasn’t until the war broke out, when Byleth had stared at Edelgard and asked if she killed their father, that she would ever spend a night with Hilda.

“I’m almost done.” Edelgard sweeps Hilda’s arms away, huffing as she rearranges the books. She hadn’t been planning on finishing the books tonight by herself, but she may as well out of spite at this point.

“Then I’ll wait for you!” Where had Hilda’s dramatic yawns gone now?

“I won’t be very good company,” Edelgard rebuts instead. If she were drowsy before, the numbers hazing together, she’s becoming increasingly awake now. Hilda pouts from the corner of her eye, rolling on the table.

“We’ll be sleeping though?” Hilda grins, winking.

“Why don’t,” Edelgard growls, slapping a book together, “you just tell me what you want so we can get this over with?”

She knows what’s going to happen, because it’s what always happens. Hilda marches into her life and her plans with that lazy smile and wants, and then she marches right out when she gets just that. No pain, and no misery, and no chains on her legs. No watching her brothers and sisters die—no, instead her brother is the top dog military commander of the Alliance, and even then she can’t get Claude to sit down and surrender.

“What I want?” Hilda doesn’t have to do a thing, and her life is perfect.

“What you want,” Edelgard nods. Hilda blinks, slow, appraising, until she straightens upwards. She’s going to ask for something frivolous, even in war, completely unaware of their budgeting. It must be nice, to be the beloved daughter of a man who loves her so.

Edelgard hasn’t heard from her father in years.

“I think,” Hilda pauses, humming. “I want new clothes. I mean—wearing armor every day is _so_ heavy! I don’t know how you can do it, Edelgard! Don’t you get all sweaty?”

“I have more pressing priorities,” Edelgard snips, shooing at Hilda. “I’ll make an order for you after revising the budget, so if you wouldn’t mind…?”

Typical Hilda would beam at her and skip out of the tent humming pretty songs until she came up with any whim to harass Edelgard with. Typical Hilda gets what she wants because she wants it, because that’s how her life works. Because she gets everything she wants.

Hilda doesn’t leave.

“If you wouldn’t mind?” Edelgard repeats, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m thinking,” she murmurs, “of what I want.”

“I’ll order you a necklace,” Edelgard groans. New clothes, and makeup, and maybe even a ball gown if Hilda so wishes it.

“That’s not what I’m thinking of.” That, out of everything, is the most surprising thing Hilda’s said so far. Edelgard raises an eyebrow, leaning back in her chair, turning to face Hilda.

“What,” she says, slow, measured, “are you thinking of?”

Hilda hums, smiling that same lazy smile, picking up a notebook to rub her palm over it once more.

“I want Linhardt back.”

Oh.

“And Petra.”

That’s—

“And Bernie.”

That’s not fair.

Linhardt and Petra had been mistakes. They had been overzealous, confident, these two sparkling spirits despite their reluctance to fight in this war. Edelgard had thought they would abandon her in the dark, tired of war, of fighting, of wearing badges forced around their neck but—

They had stayed. And they had died for their stupidity.

Bernadetta had volunteered.  
“They’re not going to come back,” Edelgard sighs, closing her eyes. The anger and irritation once snapping within her deflates just as fast, a rush of fatigue taking their place.

“I know that.” Hilda laughs, a wobbly imitation of what she could do. The tears she faked in her complaints at the beginning of the war don’t seem so fake anymore.

It seemed that Edelgard had barely known anyone at all when the war began. She runs a hand over a book, remembering the times when she had stumbled upon Linhardt late at night, expecting him to be slumbering away when he was in reality fumbling through these books, marking these numbers. The Petra that was so frightened of her abandoning her kingdom and declaring a brutal conquest had shed her skin to fight by Edelgard’s side.

The Bernie who screamed from within the door had smiled on that field. She had even waved goodbye, knowing that it was her life on the line, and Edelgard’s decision to take it.

“Do you?” She whispers.

Her hands are red.

Hilda’s arms come around her, slow, gentle. She could kill Edelgard by gripping her throat and snapping hard, ending this endless burning in an instant. It’s not as though Hilda’s hands are clean themselves, pink from the stains that never fade.

They meet at her neck, but rather than squeeze, Hilda rests her chin on Edelgard’s shoulder instead.

“These things happen in war, right El?”

It seems she’s underestimated Hilda once again. She had surprised Edelgard the first time with her strength, then her perseverance, and then for fighting, her nails broken and her skin burning, screaming against the red streaks. She had survived, and then survived, and then survived, and every time Edelgard turned her back to see who was guarding it, it was Hilda who stood with her axe raised high.

“You’re right,” she murmurs, sliding the book back to the tabletop. “Shall we get some sleep?”

“See? I knew you’d agree.” Hilda teases. She runs a hand through Edelgard’s locks, sighing.

“I always get what I want.”

It’s a shame, Edelgard thinks, that that’s not entirely true.

**Author's Note:**

> HILDAGARD TIME  
> ummmm Edelgard is a lil angsty ball during war so this ended up a bit darker than I expected, but hey! war!! yay! thats what happens folks!
> 
> fun Hilda/Edelgard things:  
> \- Hilda loves being a girl-girl lord/retainer. She thinks she's very cool. And hot. Especially hot. Might or might not flirt with those cute deer girls (and boys)  
> \- Edelgard doubly doesn't trust anyone. A weird mysterious lord for Leichester? That slimy weirdo with the Kingdom kid? Dragons??? No thanks buddy  
> \- Claude thinks Hilda is fun to hang with but thinks Edelgard got the short end of the stick retainer wise.  
> \- Hubert avoids them. Cooties. Disgusting.  
> \- Dimitri is certain that Edelgard and Hilda are very nice girls, he is just. Um. Concerned about their axe strength. Not so much for them but for everyone who spars against them. 
> 
> Judge my life choices on [ twitter ](https://twitter.com/shidreamin/)


End file.
